


Sea, Swallow Me

by sewn



Series: Gen Prompt Bingo 18 [2]
Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: All Magic Comes With a Price, Episode: s02e09, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Not That Much Comfort, PTSD, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sewn/pseuds/sewn
Summary: At the Enclave, after surviving Crimson and surveying the Warlock Lord's handiwork at Graymark, Mareth has time to reflect.
Relationships: Allanon & Mareth (Shannara)
Series: Gen Prompt Bingo 18 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737304
Kudos: 5
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 18





	Sea, Swallow Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happened because I'm still sad we didn't get to see any scenes of Mareth and Allanon together between them leaving Graymark and fighting the WL. I have again tinkered with some details such as Mareth being much less put together here than on the show.
> 
> A big thank you to nyctanthes for the thoughtful beta.
> 
> For my Gen Prompt Bingo square "Last Times / Farewells."

”I need to clean up.” 

That’s what she’d said to Wil.

It was not a lie. She was sweaty and muddied. Even after a night and day spent on horseback, her hair still smelled of smoke, her clothes were covered in soot, and there was blood under her fingernails—her own, and her father’s. Some from a Crimson soldier she had tried to resist. 

In truth, what she most needed was a moment alone.

Mareth had gladly thrown herself into Wil’s arms. The relief that had filled her heart at seeing him had been overwhelming; it was much purer than the relief of being snatched out of the jaws of her own death. It was a clean-cut feeling, and she clung to it: she loved Wil, after all, and seeing a loved one safe after fearing the worst sparked a good, clear emotion in her.

It was much less clear trying to go over everything that had taken place. Not a day ago, she had been ready to die—and that was no lie either.

She had proclaimed it before, throwing herself into fights, against the odds, and she had felt it before—or she'd thought she had. Now all those moments seemed distant, merely pretending, as if no Rover’s knife could ever truly harm her, her years’ worth of scars be damned. It seemed like those moments had been chosen, or at least their circumstances.

No, when she’d clasped her father's blood-slick hand, lungs burning, she had been filled with a sense of fatalism she had never experienced before. It was not any form of peace. She was filled with rage: at the world, at General Riga, at herself, but it was a cold, resigned feeling. She would die feeling like that—and also that other thing: the most bittersweet of reconciliations, to have her father finally break down in a way she’d only dreamed of as a child.

It had been with a child’s sadistic sense of entitlement she’d imagined those words, that tone of regret, all those years ago. Hearing them out loud had been almost too perfect a fantasy come true, if not for the cruel irony of being about to die a painful death together. (Later, she wondered if he’d picked those words out of her head; she had no doubt her father was honest about his emotions—he had no skill in hiding them, whatever he told himself—but how he voiced them had been too close to her dreams.) There had been no room for anything but that rage and that newly-fresh wound in her. She had been a child, deserving of love, and righteously angry. That she wouldn’t even see his face before they perished only added to the cruel perfection of the moment.

Wil’s arms had pulled her back from the murky well that these thoughts inhabited, kept her precariously from falling. But just as quick, his presence had become cloying, like there was too much of it. He had smelled good, of the forest green—and of all things the sea. It was impossible; Arborlon was inland. And yet this was the one smell Mareth knew intimately, the scent of her home, unfamiliar to the long-poisoned waters cradling these ruins of a city.

So, she’d retreated, been guided to a room of her own—not quite realizing in the moment that she was being treated like this because of her status; no moth-eaten blanket and a cup of brown rice for her, but a bed and a plate of fish with a side of vegetables. (She only felt guilty afterwards, taking stock of the mindlessly torn bodies, for leaving the food untouched without offering it to someone else. Even if a warm meal before being slaughtered wouldn’t have been much of a consolation, at least she would have done something more than she ultimately did.)

The relative quiet of the room eased the pounding in her head some. She knew if she laid on the bed, she’d risk falling asleep, so she paced around, taking off her cloak and wiping the worst smudges off her face with a washcloth thoughtfully arranged for her, as if trying to keep her word to Wil. It only distracted her for a moment: her head was busy, thoughts racing each other so quickly she started to lose what they were about, only feeling that they were _there_.

She hadn’t looked around while entering the Enclave, too strung out, only anticipating seeing Eretria and Wil, but her mind now started cataloging what must have been around her. She was trained to do it out of survival instinct, but it was unwelcome right now, and she wished it would stop: the grief-stricken but determined faces, the murmured conversations, the looks thrown around. She’d rather have paid attention to the dimensions of the rooms, the doors and the corners, something useful. Why did she see these fingers, brushing hair, tapping a meaningless rhythm, playing a melancholy tune—or hear these voices, harsh, trilling, scared? Were these people not supposed to be preparing for a fight, keeping their spirits high?

”Stop,” she huffed into her balled hands, eyes scrunched, nearly stomping her feet, in a gesture an adult only allows herself when not observed.

It was that instant self-reflection that shook her from the reverie, like she’d been physically touched. Not so—only her father had entered the room.

”I could have been indecent.” She tried for archness, but found she had no strength not to sound merely embarrassed and irritated.

”I called your name.”

Her father looked suitably apologetic, but his heart wasn’t in it. He lingered near the doorway, part awkwardness caused by being alone with her again, part physical ache making him consider each expending of energy, no matter how small.

”I suppose you’d know if I were.” She shrugged. She appreciated his sudden openness, but now was not the time for it, either—he himself should know better.

He walked closer, then. He needed a clean-up as badly as she did, and someone to check up on his wounds, but he’d chosen to come here right after delivering the news to Cogline.

”That is what I needed to talk to you about.”

While she still deciphered this, he stepped closer still, so she could see the dirt stuck in his crow’s feet, mixed with dried salt, almost feel that minor irritation.

”I cannot read your mind anymore.” He said it carefully, like bringing ill news, a tone he had never used in conjunction with them.

”But—I _feel_ it. You.” She didn’t try to explain it, aware he knew what she meant: that touch against her mind when his invaded it. The connection was there, now, stronger, in fact, than she ever wanted it to be.

”And it is not my doing.”

Mareth closed her eyes, a sudden weight against the back of her head, a kaleidoscope of images attaching itself to her mind’s eye. Her tired face, her stringy hair, the collar marks on her neck; the soft green light, the momentary glint off the silver of her earrings—the hilt on her hip, where it looked right and wrong. Her faltering legs and her unfamiliar weight.

”How do I stop it?”

Without her permission, her voice echoed the earlier petulance, though it now felt like she had been given permission to be a child for a moment. She struggled to open her eyes. The ceiling was a swirl of color and light, the bed under her softer than anything she could remember.

”Patience.” His weight dipped the bed. ”May I help you up?” 

She felt more potently _touching_ than _being touched_ as he laid his palm on her upper back. She tried to hone in on her own sensation, but it was too brief. Same with her hands: she felt the cool metal of her ring as his thumb pressed on it, saw her abraded knuckles and felt his reaction to the sight.

”Here. Drink this.”

She would have protested the offered cup if she hadn’t known exactly what he’d brought: a calming drink to numb her for just a few hours, something from Cogline's personal collection. In any other case she’d have been insulted, but it was difficult to argue when there were lightnings striking the back of her eyes.

”Can I—”

”Yeah,” she said, unaware that words hadn’t followed thought yet.

He helped her take off her boots, and she didn’t mind. Curling up under a duvet seemed like a good idea.

”It will cease once you’re asleep.”

She waited for the world to settle. There were echoes everywhere, voices criss-crossing and bumping into each other. She was sure that if someone were to open the door, it would all crash in like the tide. Just one person was enough. Her father’s mind was a sparkling mass somewhere outside her field of vision, and she was hopelessly drawn to it. This druid gift had always struck her as a cruel weapon, the kind she didn’t want to be wielded against herself, and here she was, ready to strike.

As if he hadn’t just lost the ability, he said, ”You have my permission.”

She was glad to be granted it, if only to save her from hypocrisy. When she looked into his mind—

Mareth had ridden a roc, once. It had been unlike anything she’d felt before; she’d thought it might feel like falling, but it was more like swimming. It was exhilarating to be free of the Earth’s constant, unshakable order, and yet, she could feel it whenever the great bird tipped to its side, changing the arc of its flight, that the Earth was always there, calling her, not unlike the bottom of the sea, only air was not nearly as friendly to her body as water. Beyond that, she had had no comparison to make: she’d been untethered, the wind in her face a shock, her only anchor the warm body of the roc-rider.

That was the closest she could compare it to, the state of his mind. It didn’t scare him—though he was scared, for a myriad of other reasons, all now laid out for her to inspect—and it wasn’t a source of pain either. It had made him deeply uneasy and light-headed, a reaction that was slowly molding into a simple awareness, similar to hers, of something having changed. He was neither relieved nor shocked. There was a small part of him wondering if this was reversible, if there was a collar to be opened. An Earth to be returned to.

”It’s too much.” She pressed the heel of her hand over her eye, the one not hidden by the pillow. 

”It won’t be like that for long. Your mind will shut others out soon.”

So, there would be no lesson to be learned here. She was almost disappointed. She let her hand fall from her face, limp, a blissful dark current flowing through her, promising sleep with no dream.

He continued, tone measured, though she now sensed the uncertainty behind it even without seeing his face.

”You were not wrong to think of it as a weapon, but you should not hesitate to use it if it will save lives. Only—” He searched for words, like running fingers through loose pebbles. ”It does have two edges.”

”Very poetic,” she muttered. The weight on her eyelids had become less like a protective instinct and more like a warm blanket.

”You are right to worry about transgressing, but as long as you stay true to the path, you will know when it is right. Magic can't live without knowledge.” This was recital. From somewhere long ago. She knew this man’s face. ”But you need to draw the line for your own sake. Rely on people’s innermost secrets, and you’ll only disappoint yourself and others.”

His thoughts were a magic lantern of images, replacing each other in quick succession, of faces, places, things he didn’t want her to dig out—he fought the urge to distract her somehow, unused to being on the other side of this threshold. She wanted to help. Smooth out that uneasiness. Wash over it. Like the sea.

”You should not act based on what people wish for. Or what you think they do.” His voice didn’t quite shake. But he’d found a distraction for her.

”Wil,” she mumbled, remembering to worry. There were important things there. He needed to do something.

”I’ll see to the boy." From farther away. His weariness like hers. "Rest now. We’ll talk more later.”

(They never did; it was this, among other unfulfilled promises, that propelled her to draw the twin blades with such fury. It was a quick lesson in what it was to know other people’s deepest intentions and to fight them in vain.

He’d chosen, too. Not a death wish, but a wish for death for the exact reasons that had led him to this fight: a meaningful death. She’d hated feeling it so much that the pain from each of his disappearing runes carving itself in her flesh had passed her by. Only afterwards, tearing the charred cloth off of her raw skin, did she realize what had happened.)

Before the current carried her away, she saw herself from the outside for the last time with the eyes of someone who connected her to a tapestry, to a tree with roots. She was not a beacon, or a protector, or a remnant of times past. For the last time, she was a spark, to be kept and cherished: a future.


End file.
